TrumpCare is cruel and wrong
According to the recent CBO cost estimate of TrumpCare by Republican Keith Hall, “Most people purchasing it would have higher out-of-pocket spending on health care than under the current law.” A 64-year-old earning $26,500 per year would annually pay about $1,700 in premiums under the ACA, but $14,600 in premiums under the new bill. In addition, the bill imposes a massive cost shift of Medicaid costs. States will have to undertake rationing measures to meet an estimated $880 billion in cuts over a 10-year period. The wealthy get tax cuts, but poor elderly citizens pay more in premiums. Two-thirds of elderly nursing home residents are now on Medicaid so many will be kept out. Children and the disabled could lose health care entirely. More uninsured will go to emergency rooms. Three words describe this attempt to take from the poor and give to the rich: cruel and selfish and wrong.
KATHARINE PANZELLA, POWDER SPRINGS
Liberals use health bill scare tactics
I know liberals are upset at the prospect of the Republicans dumping Obamacare and replacing it with their own version.
What is ridiculous is the scare tactics that they use (especially CNN) about the Senate and House version of the proposed bill: if passed, it would result in 22 million people losing their health-care coverage by 2026.
What a ridiculous statement! First of all, how many (if any) would lose coverage in the immediate future? Secondly, by 2026, we very well could be on our third president since Obama, and the health-care bill would have changed countless times in all those years.
I’m sure the liberals are counting on their people looking only at the “22 million people will lose their coverage” and ignoring the “by 2026” part of the statement.
RICHARD NOWAK, CUMMING
We must remember Confederate history
I find it somewhat ironic that Atlanta chooses to erect a statue to “comfort women” (“Comfort women statue to be unveiled in Brookhaven,” News, June 27) while others in Atlanta and various communities throughout the South are tearing down statues of notable Civil War persons. Both are symbols of unpleasant events. Most people don’t see the statues and similar memorials as something to celebrate, just something to simply acknowledge events that we’d prefer to not repeat. As the saying goes, those who do not know history are likely doomed to repeat it. Those of Jewish heritage certainly don’t celebrate the Holocaust, yet they provide us with museums to preserve the facts of history so we don’t repeat them. Statues of comfort women and Civil War leaders can do the same. Let’s stop trying to eradicate unpleasant history and use it to guide our actions in the future.
P.D. GOSSAGE, JOHNS CREEK
Put ideological differences aside for health care
Obamacare or TrumpCare? Why, oh why, can’t it just be AmericaCare? Ideological hardening on both the Republican and Democratic sides in the current health-care debate does a tremendous disservice to, and insults the people of, this wonderful country. The intransigence of allegiance to one’s political party in this insane debate demeans America. Congress was elected to serve the people. But it seems to me they’re only serving themselves, their party and their ideology. Why can’t Congress just really listen to the people who are terrified of losing their health care coverage, or having it and not being able to afford the premium or deductible? Our most vulnerable and poorest citizens are on Medicaid, including disabled children and adults. Cutting Medicaid by $772 billion is beyond “mean,” it’s downright cruel. And at the same time giving a huge tax cut to the wealthiest one percent is unconscionable. America has a well-deserved reputation for innovation and creativity. President Trump wants to “Make America Great Again.” So he and Congress should put aside their differences, reach out, and work together to create AmericaCare and use some of that lauded innovation and creativity to do what’s best for America, not themselves.
KATHLEEN COLLOMB, DECATUR
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